Biography
Kishio Suga was born in Morioka City, Iwate Prefecture in 1944. After graduating from the Painting Department of Tama Art University, his work has been the subject of many exhibitions both in Japan and abroad. Solo museum exhibitions include shows at the Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan (2016), Dia Chelsea in New York (2016), the Yokohama Museum of Art (1999), and the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art (1997). In January, 2016, he received the prestigious Mainichi Art Award and had an exhibition at the HangarBicocca in Milan, his first solo show in the Western world.
Kishio Suga is best known for his association with the art movement Moho-ha (School of Things), which emerged around the end of 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s in Japan. The artist used natural and manmade materials such as wood, metal, stones, concrete, and plastic, which he would arrange on site without altering their form. He called the resulting scene “Situation (kei).” As is especially evident in his large-scale installations, Suga seeks to create a relationship between the objects and their surrounding space, combining different materials in bold and interesting ways.
